Kii: Kuialuaopuna
THE LEGEBS AID MYTHS OF HAWAII.
THE FABLES AND TOLK-LORE OF A STRANGE PEOPLE.
BY HIS HAWAHAN MAJESTY KALAKAUA.
New York :CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY. 1888.
THE CANNIBALS OF HALEMANU.
Pgs. 369-380
A POPULAR LEGEND OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
ALTHOUGH barbarous to the extent to which a brave.' warm-hearted and hospitable people were capable of becoming, every social, political and religious circumstance preserved by tradition tends to show that at no period of their history did the Polynesians proper — or the Hawaiian branch of the race, at least — practise cannibalism. In their migrations from the southern coasts of Asia to their final homes in the Pacific, stopping, as they did, at various groups of islands in their voluntary or compulsory journeyings, the Polynesians must have been brought in contact with cannibal tribes ; but no example ever persuaded them into the habit of eating human flesh, or of regarding the appetite for it with a feeling other than that of aversion and disgust. In offering a human sacrifice it was customary for the officiating priest to remove the left eye of the victim after the lifeless body had been deposited upon the altar, and present it to the chief, who made a semblance of eating it. Even as learned and conscientious an inquirer as Judge Fornander has suggested that this custom was possibly the relic of a cannibal propensity existing among the Polynesian peoj^le far back in the past. The assumption is quite as reasonable that the rite was either a simple exhibition of bravado, or the expression of a desire on the part of the chief to thereby more strictly identify himself with the offering in the eyes of the gods.
Several traditions have come down the centuries referring to the existence of cannibal tribes or bands at one time or another in the Hawaiian archipelago, particularly on the islands of Oahu and Kauai, and harrowing stories of their exploits are a part of the folk-lore of the group. But in every instance the man-eaters are spoken of as foreigners, who came from a land unknown, maintained local footholds for brief seasons in mountain fastnesses, and in the end were either exterminated or driven from the islands by the people for their barbarous practices. It is difficult to fix, even approximately, the period of the earlier of these occurrences, as they are mentioned in connection with ruling chiefs whose names do not appear in the chronological 7neles surviving the destruction of the ancient priesthood. Instead of being foreigners, it is not improbable that the cannibals referred to ill some of the traditions were the remnants of a race of savages found on one or more of the islands of the group when the first of the Polynesians landed there. This, it may be presumed, was somewhere near the middle of the fifth century of the Christian era.
It has generally been assumed by native historians that the ancestors of the Hawaiian people found the entire group uninhabited at the time of their arrival there. The bird, the lizard and the mouse, with an insect life confined to few varieties, were the sole occupants of that ocean paradise, with its beautiful streams, its inviting hills, its sandal forests, its cocoa and ohia groves, its flowering plains, its smiling valleys of everlasting green. But the interval between the fifth century and the eleventh — between the first and second periods of Polynesian arrival — is a broad blank in the legendary annals of Hawaii, and the absence of any record of the circumstance cannot be satisfactorily accepted as evidence that, on arriving at the group from the southern islands, the Polynesians of the fifth century did not find it sparsely occupied by an inferior and less capable people, whom they either affiliated with or destroyed. In some of the meles vague references are made to such a people, and ruins of temples are still pointed out as the work of the Menehuttes — a half-mythical race or tribe, either from whom the Hawaiians descended, or with whom they were in some manner connected in the remote past.
To whatever period, however, many of these stories of cannibalism may refer, circumstances tend to show that the legends connected with the man-eaters of Halemanu are based upon events of comparatively recent centuries. The natives, who still relate fragments of these legends to those whom curiosity prompts to visit the cannibals' retreat near the northern coast of Oahu, generally refer the adventures described to the early part or middle of the eighteenth century, and a half-caste of intelligence informed the writer that his grandfather had personal knowledge of the cannibal band. Although the sharpness of the details preserved indicates that their beginning could not have been very many generations back, the occupation of Halemanu by Aikanaka and his savage followers could have occurred scarcely later than the latter part of the seventeenth century — probably during the reign of Kualii or his immediate successor, somewhere between the years 1660 and 1695. At that time Oahu was governed by a number of practically independent chiefs, whose nominal head was the governing alii-nui of the line of Kakuhihevva, of whom Kualii was the great-grandson.
It will therefore be assumed that it was near the close of the seventeenth century that Kalo Aikanaka, with two or three hundred followers, including women and children, landed at Waialua, on the northern coast of Oahu, and temporarily established himself on the sea-shore not far from that place. Ten years before, more or less, he had arrived with a considerable party at Kauai from one of the southern islands — which one tradition does not mention. The strangers came in double canoes, and, as they were in a starving condition, it was thought that they had been blown thither by adverse winds while journeying to some other islands. They were hospitably received and cared for by the people of Kauai, and for their support were given lands near the foot of the mountains back of Waimea. In complexion they were somewhat darker than the Kauaians, but otherwise did not differ greatly from them either in dress, manners, modes of living or appearance. They knew how to weave mats, construct houses of timber and thatch, make spears and knives, and hollow out canoes of all dimensions. They were familiar with the cocoanut and its uses, and required no instruction in the cultivation of kalo or taro. They were expert fishermen, and handled their weapons with dexterity. Their language, however, was entirely different from that of the Kauaians ; but they soon acquired a knowledge of the latter, and in a short time could scarcely be distinguished from the natives of the island.
Although known as Kalo Aikanaka by the natives, the real name of the chief of the strangers was Kokoa. The name of his principal lieutenant or adviser, which is given as Kaaokeewe by tradition, was Lotu, or Lotua. Kokoa was of chiefly proportions, and his muscular limbs were tattooed with rude representations of birds, sharks and other fishes. His features were rather of the Papuan cast, but his hair was straight, and the expression of his face was not unpleasant. The appearance of Lotu, on the contrary, was savage and forbidding. His strength was prodigious, and he made but little disguise of his lawless instincts. The wife of Kokoa had died during the passage to Kauai, leaving with him a daughter of marriageable age named Palua. Tradition says she was very beautiful, and wore necklaces and anklets of pearls. Her eyes were bright, her teeth were white, and the ends of her braided hair touched her brown ankles as she walked. Lotu was married, but without children. He did not like them, and more than one, it is said, had been taken from the breast of Kaholekua and strangled.
The strangers brought with them two or three gods, and made others after their arrival. They knew nothing of the gods of the Kauaians, and preferred to worship their own. To this the natives did not object ; but in the course of time they discovered that their tabu customs, even the most sacred, were not observed by the strangers. Their women were permitted to eat cocoanuts, bananas, and all kinds of flesh and fish, including the varieties of which native females were not allowed to partake. Fearing the wrath of the gods, the chief of the district visited Kokoa and requested him to put a stop to these pernicious practices among his people. He promised to do so, and for a time they ceased ; but the offenders soon fell back into their old habit of indiscriminate eating, and the chief again visited Kokoa, prepared to put his previous request into the form of an order. The order was given, but not with the emphasis designed by the chief in making the visit, for he then met Palua for the first time, and found it difficult to speak harshly to the father of such a daughter. In fact, before he left the chief thought it well to leave the matter open for further explanation, and the next day returned to make it, and to ask Kokoa, as well, to give him the beautiful Palua for a wife. Father and daughter both consented, and within a few days Palua accompanied the chief home as his wife. There, at least, it was expected that Palua would respect the tabus she had violated before her coming, and the chief appointed a woman to instruct her thoroughly in the regulations applicable to her changed condition. She promised everything, but secretly complied with no requirement. The chief implored her to obey the mandates of the gods, and sought to screen her acts from the eyes of others ; but her misdemeanors became so flagrant that they at last came to the knowledge of the high-priest, and her life was demanded. Her husband would have returned Palua to her father, but the priest declared that her offences had been so wanton and persistent that the gods would be satisfied with nothing short of her death, and she was therefore strangled and thrown into the sea.
Learning of the death of his daughter, Kokoa in his rage slew a near kinsman of the chief and made a feast of his body, to the great delight of his followers. They were cannibals, but the fact was not known to their neighbors, as they had thus far restrained their appetites for human flesh, and avoided all mention to others of their propensity for such food. Their relish for it, however, was revived by the feast provided by the wrath of Kokoa, and they were not sorry to leave the lands they had been for some time cultivating back of Waimea, and find a home in the neighboring mountains, where they could indulge their savage tastes without restraint.
Locating in a secluded valley in the mountains of Haupu, Kokoa and his people remained there for several years. They cultivated taro and other vegetables, and for their meat depended upon such natives as they were able to capture in out-of-the-way places and drag to their ovens. Suspected of cannibalism, they were finally detected in the act of roasting a victim. Great indignation and excitement followed this discovery, and the chief of the district called for warriors to assist him in exterminating the man-eaters. But Kokoa did not wait for a hostile visit. His spies informed him of what was occurring in the valleys below, and he hastily dropped down to the opposite coast, seized a number of canoes at night, and with his followers immediately set sail for Oahu. The party first landed at Kawailoa ; but a Kauaian on a visit to that place recognized one of their canoes as the property of his brother, and was about to appeal to the local chief, when they suddenly re-embarked and coasted around the island to AVaialua, where they found a convenient landing and concluded to remain. We now come to the final exploits of Kokoa and his clan in Oahu. It is probable that they did not remain long in the immediate neighborhood of Waialua, where the people were numerous and unoccupied lands were scarce. Sending their scouts into the mountains in search of a safe and uninhabited retreat, one of exceptional advantages was found in the range east of Waialua, some eight or ten miles from the coast, and thither they removed. The spot selected has since been known as Halemanu. Before that time it was probably without any particular name. It is a crescent-shaped plateau of two or three hundred acres, completely surrounded by deep and almost precipitous ravines, with the exception of a narrow isthmus, scarcely wide enough for a carriage-way, connecting it with a broad area of timberless table-land stretching downward toward the sea.
Nature could scarcely have devised a place better fitted for defence, and Kokoa resolved to permanently locate there. Near the middle of the plateau he erected a temple, with stone walls two hundred feet by sixty, and twenty feet in height. This structure was also designed as a citadel, to be used in emergen cies. About fifty paces from the temple was the hale of the chief — a stone building of the dimensions of perhaps fifty feet by forty. It was divided into three rooms by wicker partitions, and roofed with stout poles and thatch. Between this building and the temple was a large excavated oven, with a capacity for roasting four or five human bodies at the same time, and a few paces to the westward was the great carving-platter of Kokoa. This was a slightly basin-shaped stone rising a foot or more above the surface, and having a superfice of perhaps six by four feet. A little hewing here and there transformed it into a convenient carving-table, from which hundreds of human bodies were apportioned to his followers by Kokoa, who reserved for himself the hearts and livers, as delicacies to which his rank entitled him. The lines of the buildings described may still be traced among the tall grass, and the oily-appearing surface of the carving-table, known as " Kalo's ipiikai" bears testimony to this day to the use made of it by the cannibals of Halemanu. The platter is now almost level with the surface of the ground, and its rim has been chipped down by relic-hunters, but time and the spoliations of the curious have not materially changed its shape.
Having provided the plateau with these conveniences and the huts necessary to accommodate his people, Kokoa next put the place in a condition for defence by cutting the tops of the' exposed slopes leading to it into perpendicular declivities, and erecting a strong building covering the width and almost entire length of the narrow back-bone connecting it with the plain below. There was then no means of reaching the plateau except by a path zigzagging down the upper side to the timbered gulches beyond, or by the trail passing directly through the building occupying the apex of the isthmus.
Of this entrance Lotu, the savage lieutenant of Kokoa, was made the custodian. And there he sat in all weather, watching for passers, the most of whom, if acceptable, he found a pretext for slaying and sending to the great oven of his companions. His almost sleepless watchfulness was due less to a disposition to serve others than to his merciless instincts, which found gratification in blood-letting and torture. Tradition says there was a hideous humor in the manner in which he dealt with many of his victims. In allowing them to pass he inquired the objects of their visits either to the plateau or the gulches beyond. They informed him, perhaps, that they were in quest of hala leaves, of poles for huts, of wood for surf-boards, of small trees for spears, or of flints for cutting implements, as the case may have been. When they returned he examined their burdens closely, and if aught was found beyond the thing of which they were specifically in search — even though so trifling an object as a walking-staff, or a twig or flower gathered by the way — he denounced them as thieves and liars, and slew them on the spot.
In this manner many hundreds of people were slain and eaten ; but as no one ever returned to tell the story of what was transpiring at Halemanu, the cannibals remained for some time undisturbed. But if their real character was not known, their isolation and strange conduct gradually gained for them the reputation of being an evil-minded and dangerous community, and visitors became so scarce at length that Lotu found it necessary to drop down into the valleys occasionally in search of victims. Nor were these expeditions, which demanded great caution, always successful ; and when they failed, Lotu sometimes secretly killed and sent to the oven one of his own people, with faces mutilated beyond recognition. Among these were all of his own relatives and two of the three brothers of his wife. To escape the fate of the others, the surviving brother, whose name was Napopo, fled to Kauai.
In physical strength Napopo was scarcely less formidable than Lotu ; but he was young in years, and lacked both skill and confidence in his powers. To supply these deficiencies, and prepare himself for a successful encounter with Lotu, which he resolved to undertake in revenge for the death of his brothers, he sought the most expert wrestlers and boxers on Kauai, and learned from them the secrets of their prowess. He trained himself in running, swimming, leaping, climbing, and lifting and casting great rocks, until his muscles became like hard wood, and his equal in strength and agility could with difficulty be found on all the island. And he skilled himself, also, in the use of arms. He learned to catch and parry flying spears, and hurl them with incredible force and precision. From the sling he could throw a stone larger than a cocoanut, and the battle-axe he readily wielded with one hand few men were able to swing with two. Having thus accomplished himself, and still distrustful of his powers, he made the offer of a canoe nine paces in length to any one who in a trial should prove to be his master either in feats of strength or the handling of warlike weapons. Many contested for the prize, but Napopo found a superior in no one.
During the contests a strong man, with large jaws and a thick neck, came forward and challenged Napopo to compete with him in lifting heavy burdens with the teeth. The bystanders were amused at the proposal, and Napopo was compelled by their remarks and laughter to accept it, although he regarded it as frivolous. Fastening around his middle a girdle of cords, he cast himself on the ground and said to the man : " Now with your teeth lift me to the level of your breast." Stooping and seizing the girdle in his teeth, the man with a great effort lifted Napopo to the height demanded. The other was then girded in the same manner. He seemed to be confident of victory, and said to Napopo, as he threw himself at his feet : " You will do well if you raise me to the level of your knees." Napopo made no reply, but bent and gathered the girdle well between his teeth, and raised the body to the height of his loins. " Higher ! " exclaimed the man, thinking the strength of his antagonist was even then taxed to its utmost ; " my body is scarcely free from the ground ! " He had scarcely uttered these words before Napopo rose erect, and with a quick motion threw him completely over his head. Bruised and half-stunned by the fall, the man struggled to his feet, and, with a look of wonder at Napopo, hurriedly left the place to escape the jeers of the shouting witnesses of his defeat.
Now confident of his strength and satisfied with his skill, Napopo returned to Oahu in the canoe which so many had failed to win. Landing at Waialua, he by some means learned that his sister, Kaholekua, the wife of Lotu, had been killed by her husband. Arming himself with a spear and knife of sharks' teeth, Napopo proceeded to Halemanu. Arriving at the house barring the entrance to the stronghold, he was met at the door by Lotu, Their recognition was cold. The eyes of Lotu gleamed with satisfaction. No longer intimidated, as in the past, Napopo paid back the look with a bearing of defiance.
" Leave your spear and enter," said Lotu, curtly.
Napopo leaned his spear against the house and stepped within, observing, as he did so, that Lotu in his movements kept within reach of an axe and javelin lying near the door.
" Where is Kaholekua ? " inquired Napopo.
" There, " replied Lotu, sullenly, pointing toward a curtain of mats stretched across a corner of the room.
Without a word Napopo stepped to the curtain and drew it aside. He expected to find his sister dead, if at all, but she was still living, although lying insensible from wounds which seemed to be mortal. With a heart swelling with rage and anguish, he closed the curtain and returned to the door. He could not trust himself to speak, and therefore silently stepped without, in the hope that Lotu would leave his weapons and follow him. To this end he stood for a few minutes near the entrance, as if overwhelmed with grief, when Lotu cautiously approached the door. Advancing a step farther, Napopo suddenly turned and seized him before he could reach his weapons, and a desperate barehanded struggle followed. Both were giants, and the conflict was ferocious and deadly. From one side to the other of the narrow isthmus they battled, biting, tearing, pulling, breaking, with no decided advantage to either ; but the endurance of Napopo was greater than that of his older antagonist, and in the end he was able to inflict injury without receiving dangerous punishment in return. Both of them were covered with blood, and their maros had been rent away in the struggle, leaving them perfectly nude.
Although Napopo had in a measure overpowered his mighty adversary, he found it difficult to kill him with his naked hands. He could tear and disiigure his flesh, but was unable to strangle him or break his spine. He therefore resolved to drag him to the verge of the precipice, and hurl him over it into the rocky abyss below. Struggling and fighting, the edge of the gulf was reached, when Lotu suddenly fastened his arms around his antagonist, and with a howl of desperation plunged over the brink. Dropping downward to destruction together, Lotu's head was caught in the fork of a tree near the bottom of the,declivity and torn from the body, and Napopo, clasped in the embrace of the lifeless but rigid trunk, fell dead and mangled among the rocks of the ravine still farther down.
Recovering her consciousness during the battle, Kaholekua dragged herself from the house just in time to witness the descent of the desperate combatants over the precipice. Approaching the verge, she uttered a feeble wail of anguish and plunged headlong down the declivity, her mangled remains lodging within a few paces of those of her husband and brother.
The conclusion of these tragical scenes was observed by a party from the plateau above — one tradition says by Kokoa himself. However this may be, the cannibal chief concluded that Halemanu was no longer a desirable retreat, and a few days after crossed the mountains to Waianae with his remaining followers, and soon thereafter set sail with them for other lands. What became of the party is not known ; but with their departure ends the latest and most vivid of the several legends of cannibalism in the Hawaiian archipelago.
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